Thursday, September 14, 2017

Dog Walkers Anonymous

Rin Tin Tin (1929), photo: Warner Brothers

Dogs are famously or infamously (depending on how you feel
about the encrusted turd you're trying to extract from the crenellated soles
of your running shoes) man’s best friend? But what about dog walkers? It’s not
a matter of friendship. You run into them in the elevator pulling on the
leashes of their charges and probably find yourself thinking this is the last
person you want to see. Have you for instance been on a schedule in
which by hook or crook you come up and down in the elevator of
your building with the same dog walker more than once a day? You’ve already
said your perfunctory hello and he or she is as disgusted to have to apologize for their presence as you are to see them. Why have a dog if you're going to need a
dog walker? It’s not really germane to the discussion, but consider this.
Having a dog walker is like coming late for a movie. Yes, it’s fun to have someone running to the door
when you turn the key in the lock, and following you as you run to the bathroom
or the bar or both. It’s great to pat the furry panting head, as you clink the
ice in your highball, imagining yourself to be some great statesman like Churchill
sitting in front of a roaring fire at 10 Downing Street. But you’re missing a
good part of the film. You might as well see the trailer. Dog
walkers are surrogates and before employing one, it’s a good idea to remember
all the cases of men who have fallen in love with their babysitters. In this
case it’s not that the dog walker will run off with your husband or wife; it’s
that the dog will opt for its walker. In any case, most dog walkers worth his their salt are going to be picking up poop all day and after a while it takes a
toll. Even if you happen to like your local dog walkers, it’s unlikely you’re
going to want to shake hands with them.

About Me

Francis Levy's debut novel, Erotomania: A Romance, was released in August 2008 by Two Dollar Radio.
His short stories, criticism, humor, and poetry have appeared in The New York Times, The Washington Post, The New Republic, The Village Voice, The East Hampton Star, The Quarterly, Penthouse, Architectural Digest, TV Guide, The Journal of Irreproducible Results, and other publications. One of his Voice humor pieces was anthologized in The Big Book of New American Humor (HarperCollins). He is presently the Co-Director of The Philoctetes Center for the Multidisciplinary Study of Imagination (philoctetes.org), where he supervises roundtable discussions on topics as varied as “The Psychology of the Modern Nation State” and “Modern Traffic Theory, Behavior, and Imagination”.